Last weekend, Foghorn and I were home with strep throat. This weekend, The Professor and I have been sidelined with colds and an ice storm that came through the southwestern Ohio area last night. That means...more knitting!
Last weekend I finished up some small projects. This weekend I'm devoting to the new yarn I purchased from Roving Acres this week. Throw in Ken Burns' dvd on the Lewis and Clark expedition and I'm set for a not-unpleasant afternoon (except for the nose-blowing and pounding head).
For my first Roving Acres project, I used a soft variegated merino/alpaca yarn in shades of dark gray for a pair of fingerless gloves. I tend to read a lot before bed and while I'm snuggled up under the blankets, my hands get chilly holding the book. Now I have the solution, courtesy of a free pattern found here.
Today I'm working with my other skein of the same merino/alpaca yarn, this time in a gorgeous natural color. After having made numerous pairs of socks in the last month from sock weight yarn, I decided I wanted a pair in thicker worsted weight. Since I have terrible feet and live in Birkenstock clogs, I figure my cold heels would appreciate nice, thick socks. I'm using a free pattern I found on Ravelry here.
Lastly, I never managed to post pictures of the socks I made at Christmas. For the last several years, inspired by Mr. Bean's Christmas Special, I've given my mother and sister socks. Since we do our celebrating on Christmas Eve, it leaves them with a little something extra from me to be opened on Christmas morning. Thanks to my new knitting obsession skills, I was able to make the socks this year. And who would I turn to for yarn except my beloved Roving Acres? As with the scarf and hat set I made for myself, Beth was super-helpful in getting just the colors I needed for these socks. I wanted variegated red, going from a bright, deep red all the way down to just short of pink. The yarn came out exactly like I wanted and it is so luxuriously soft. In fact, it was so wonderful to work with that I was kicking myself for not buying a third skein so I could have a pair. Turned out, since the recipients don't like socks that come too far up the calf, there was enough yarn left over for a pair for myself. Both ladies loved them and declared them to be the nicest socks they've ever owned. I used a free pattern available on Ravelry here.
From my ice-bound family room, I leave you with my inspiration for my Christmas tradition. Enjoy!
Ever since my Roving Acres yarn arrived, I've been DYING to get to work on my winter hat and scarf. When I contacted Beth at Roving Acres about getting a custom-dyed yarn, I asked for a variegated that went from very light gray to charcoal. And that's exactly what I got. The alpaca/merino wool is soft and luxurious, but is going to be so wonderfully warm when the temperatures drop. (Considering we had about five minutes of snow flurries the other afternoon, I think I'm getting this done none too soon.)
The hat pattern is the Hurricane Hat (free pattern here), using a 16" size 7 circular needle and a set of size 7 double-pointed needles. I actually made this hat out of a variegated acrylic yarn in the spring as one of my first, practice knitting projects. It actually worked (a boost to the new knitter), but I made it a little small. I liked the pattern, though, with the swirl design, and ordered the wool yarn with this hat in mind. Foghorn saw the finished product this week and immediately said, "Can you make one for me?" Well, it so happened I still had that acrylic one from the spring that was a wee bit too small and was of a similar variegated gray color. She's thrilled. I think my husband is planning how to hide when my daughter and I go out in our matching hats. We already harass him with our 1970s-patterned matching pajamas.
The scarf is the same pattern as I used for my mother's scarf/cowl (found here). Again, I used size 8 needles and cast on 38 stitches (making it about 8-1/2" wide). In total I had about 550 yards of the Roving Acres yarn, so I made the hat first and then just worked on the scarf until I ran out of yarn. After making the scarf for my mother I was totally in love with the waffle-y texture and had to the do a duplicate for myself.
Both patterns are easy enough for a novice knitter, but have enough variety to be interesting to work on and they produce nice finished items. Next up, I'm thinking a new, more sophisticated dog sweater for St. Jimmi...
Back in September I wrote about the scarf I made for my mother from yarn she picked out at the Wool Gathering in Yellow Springs, Ohio. It was a gorgeous variegated yarn from Roving Acres, a family farm in Ohio, and I feared not having enough to finish the scarf so I bought two skeins. The scarf only took one and I left it up to my mother to decide what she'd like me to make with the other.
She chose a cowl, but most of the patterns I saw took too much yarn. Turns out she made her own cowl from fabric last year, just a simple piece of material sewn together to make a circle. I used her cloth cowl for the measurements and then tweaked a scarf pattern from Bernat (found here). I used smaller needles than called for and added stitches to increase the width. I then knitted until...well...until I ran out of yarn. The edges were sewn together to form a circle. It's smaller than most cowls out there, but just the right size for my mother's needs. The finished product is 8-1/2" wide and 29" long doubled (or 58" total). (Complete notes can be found on my Ravelry page here.)
Now, a word about that yarn. I'm in LOVE with it. I fondled many skeins at the Roving Acres booth at the Wool Gathering before my mother chose these particular colors. The yarn is a worsted weight alpaca/merino wool and it's just delicious! It's warm and wooly, but not scratchy at all. And the hand-dyeing is just gorgeous. After making two projects with their yarn I just couldn't take it anymore and had to get some for myself for a hat/scarf project. Beth at Roving Acres was wonderful to work with and dyed for me the exact color of variegated yarn I wanted. (They also have an Etsy shop here.) I wanted shades of gray, from very light up to charcoal, and it came out beautiful. I'm busily clicking away on the hat. Hopefully I'll have the finished product to show in a week or two (before the first snow flies, preferably).
It's so nice to get back to working on an adult project after many weeks of creating Christmas stockings. It's like that giddy feeling that a mother gets when she can finally pick up a novel of her choice after 5,298 readings of Goodnight, Moon. Priceless...
On this dreary and rainy Monday here in Ohio I'm not feeling very wordy. Gasp! She who can write three paragraphs about her husband's holey underwear can't seem to find the vocabulary to describe the weekend. This may have something to do with the aforementioned weather or the allergies that are making everyone's sinuses go wild or the fact that I decided today was the day I had to get back on the Weight Watchers wagon and really count my Points. (That last one has an accompanying sugar withdrawal that tends to make me sprout horns and has The Inmates running for cover.)
So, with few words and lotsa color, I give you The Warden's Weekend:
On Saturday, the annual Wool Gathering in Yellow Springs, Ohio.
Tents full of yarn, supplies, and lots of demonstrations.
I love those supercilious llamas.
A nekkid sheep following the shearing demonstration.
Foghorn's favorite? Getting a free chunk of fresh wool, still damp with lanolin.
Totally intimidated by those who not only knit but card and spin their own yarn. Ack!
Foghorn making friends with the suppliers.
The Gathering takes place on the gorgeous grounds of Young's Dairy...
and they happen to sell ice cream that's out of this world.
Two hunks of merino/alpaca hand-dyed yarn from Ohio's Roving Acres, waiting to be knit into a scarf for my mother.
And, of course, the student art contest. Foghorn had a lot of competition.
Of her two entries, WE actually thought the toucan (pictured in above photo on bottom left) was superior...
but the judges preferred her clown -- a mix of paint, marker, and paper mache hair. The winner!
And while waiting for the judges' decision, Foghorn constructed a fairy house under a tree.
Habitat for Humanity Fairies.
As for that promised recipe, yesterday my mother made a Weight Watchers two-ingredient cake from a recipe that's been floating around the Internet. It uses a box of cake mix and a can of diet soda. As you can imagine, the combinations are endless. My mother made a white cake with a lemon-lime soda and topped with a light cream cheese and lemon frosting. GOOD! Not so good I'd binge on the entire cake, but definitely good enough to take the edge off a cake craving. You can get the full recipe at her blog, Lillian's Cupboard, here.
With the ugly weather today, I wish I could go curl up in bed with one of those wooly sheep and just sleep away. I'll have to settle for a hound dog...or two...
